


Dreams of Genies

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Genies, Nightmares, referenced "I Dream of Jeannie", retro TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7355197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to Commander Lewis's retro TV stash, Mark has a distraction in the form of a genie and an astronaut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams of Genies

Among Melissa Lewis's digital entertainment, mostly comedies from the 1970's, is an older sitcom that Mark's never heard of. When he starts viewing it, he can see why she broke her usual pattern with the show: It has an astronaut as the hero. 

The darn thing dates back to the Apollo days--the hero's space capsule lands on a tropical beach, where he finds an ornate bottle holding--ta-da!--a genie. The genie--called Jeannie by the astronaut--attempts to serve Major Tony Nelson, but her help invariably causes trouble, usually with his baffled superior officers. It's incredibly dated, but it's such good-natured silliness that he keeps watching, chuckling along with the canned laughter. It passes the time. 

It's funny, back when the earliest seasons of the show aired, they were still trying to make it to the moon. Probably none of those long-gone actors ever imagined that seventy years later, someone would be watching their shenanigans on Mars. (Neither he nor Commander Lewis are aware of a slightly earlier comedy, "My Favorite Martian", which owes even less to scientific accuracy.) 

He dreams of Jeannie, dreams of finding a bottle amid the red sands while taking soil samples. Sometimes the bottle is empty, sometimes the beautiful blonde emerges and offers to serve him. The trouble is, something always goes wrong. His potatoes vanish when she blinks to clean the Hab. She swaps the Rover for an imported sports car, but he needs the Rover's gear. She conjures up feasts, but even in his dreams, everything tastes like potatoes. 

When Mark was a kid, "Aladdin" was his favorite animated movie--he loved that wacky genie--but now his dreams are uneasy; the djinns that come to him aren't the selfless beings of TV or cinema. They're cruel and capricious. They like to return him to Earth, gleefully informing him that its unprotected inhabitants are now occupying Mars. He is not just the only human on the planet, he's the last human on any planet

Mark doesn't tell anyone about his nightmares. When he's back aboard Hermes, he jokes with Lewis about her penchant for television that's older than both of them. 

Little by little, the bad dreams fade. A couple years later, visiting the Becks in Florida, they moake a quick trip to Cocoa Beach, which is a real place--although unlike the stock photos from the show, there are no mountains in the background. There's a landmark Mark wants to see for himself. 

Not long after, Melissa Lewis gets an unexpected email from Mark Watney--he's giving her a thumbs-up from beside the sign that gives the history of "I Dream of Jeannie Lane". 

...

**Author's Note:**

> Mark may have written off the cast as "long-gone", but remember, "The Martian" is set in 2035. As of 2016, Barbara Eden is alive and well, and I'll be delighted if she has another 20 years left. (Besides, it isn't as if he could IMDb it.)
> 
> And yes, there really *is* an "I Dream of Jeannie Lane" in Cocoa Beach, Florida.


End file.
